Fossil fuels will be eliminated when the Leafs win the Cup
National Post readers answer the question, “Is the government’s pledge to eliminate the use of fossil fuels by 2100 realistic?”
Asking for ‘un-development’
❚Only one thing is for certain: Those intrepid folks of the G7, having lavishly pledged complete decarbonization of the world by 2100, will themselves have long been fossilized by the end of the century. So much for “accountability.” Abandoning the use of fossil fuels by 2100 is basically asking their people to un-develop whatever they have developed so far.
E.W. Bopp, Tsawwassen, B.C.
Never have to answer
❚The thing with pledges, promises or predictions is that if you make them far enough in the future, you never have to answer for them. That’s a lesson that economist Jeff Rubin learned the hard way, when he predicted in 2012 that oil was headed to over $200 a barrel and the world’s economy was to change drastically in a few short years. A goal of the year 2100 to eliminate fossil fuels is reasonable, as the span is long enough to allow for new technologies to emerge and avoids the fate of so many of those who have forecasted future events who lived long enough to be criticized for failed predictions.
Jeff Spooner, Kinburn, Ont.
Go easy, be happy
❚Can pigs fly? Never say never: the genius Thomas Edison lit up the world. Another genius will emerge to solve the problem. Until then, go easy, be happy and live a good life. Don’t forget to adjust your futuristic mini breathing apparatus placed inside your nostrils, purifying air for your lungs.
Madeleine Wannop Ross Salter, Stoney Creek, Ont.
Leave it to India and China
❚No one knows what the world will be like a hundred years hence, so pledging to get rid of fossil-fuel pollution in the distant future is just political blatherskite. Besides, Canada is a minor polluter; the major polluters such as China, India and the U.S. should be the ones to clean up their acts ASAP. Whether fossil emissions add to global warming is not the point. Clean air, water and soil should be at the top of every nation’s agenda.
William Bedford, Newmarket, Ont.
We need uninterrupted power
❚No matter how clean we make fossil fuels, the critics will never be satisfied. At the present time, there is no practical means of replacing fossil fuels. You also have to take into consideration that wind power and solar power are intermittent powers that only work while the wind blows, or when the sun shines. Fossil fuel power, like hydro power, provides constant uninterrupted power. The G7 and government decision to eliminate fossil fuels by 2100 is good proposal, but pledging to eliminate fossil fuels by 2200 would have even been better.
Fred Perry, Surrey, B.C.
Burn away
❚Harper is right. In 85 years we will probably discover how to make fossil fuels safe or find a better way of using energy. If we don’t, then our great-grandchildren in 2100 will rolloute of the problem. In the meantime we will continue to burn as much fossil fuels as needed. What could be more realistic?
Jonathan Usher, Toronto.
Will fizzle out
❚Isn’t it probable that the G7 leaders have come to the conclusion that climate change is not the danger presented by the warming alarmists? After all, 17 years of no warming, a raft of economic disasters posing as green initiatives and an increasingly meddlesome number of anticapitalist groups would give anyone pause. But to avoid political suicide, they have all agreed to make the longest punt in political history. Who can argue that zero is not low enough? Great leadership can occasionally be exemplified by ducking an issue that will fizzle out over time from a lack of evidence.
Steve Locke, Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont.
A promise to end all promises
❚Here we have seven politicians sitting down for their annual discussion, and coming up with the usual vague, and often meaningless, declarations about security, terrorism, economies, etc. Now this decarbonization pledge. Let’s be honest with ourselves, who believes very much of what a politician says, anyway? Now we are supposed to believe a promise to be kept 85 years hence. Some environmentalists may claim victory in this G7 decarbonization pledge, but they should be prepared to hold their breaths for the next 85 years and see how things work out. In my jaundiced view, this may be the political promise to end all political promises.
Bernie Smith, Parksville, B.C.
Won’t live to see
❚Who is going to know if eliminating fossil fuels by 2100 is successful or not, considering most people alive today won’t be around in the year 2100? Only clever politicians would promise something that they won’t even live to see. A lot can happen in 85 years, but the whole world would have to change, and the entire world economy would have to change with it. Realistic? Ask the government in 85 years.
Douglas Cornish, Ottawa.
A ludicrous claim
❚Absolutely, the pledge is realistic. By 2100, Western civilization will have completely collapsed and therefore there will be zero emissions — unless you count wood smoke from open campfires. Seriously, this is a ludicrous claim. No one can possibly know what life will be like 85 years from now. This is like someone in 1930 predicting life in 2015. Maybe we will be living in caves or maybe we’ll have 100 million people living on Mars. This is a waste of time. Why even bother?
John Purdy, Kirkland, Que.
A presumptuous
proposal
❚Technology obeys an exponential law: the more you have, the faster it changes. (Could anyone have predicted the effect of the Internet on our lives a mere 25 years ago?) Since the question of whether we shall still be using fossil fuels in 2100 is essentially a matter of technology, the mere assumption that we can make such predictions 85 years into the future is absurdly presumptuous. I would hesitate to make such predictions even five years into the future.
Roger Graves, North Gower, Ont.
Look to LENR
❚I think that full decarbonization by the end of this century is very possible. A technology is emerging which will make this goal achievable: Low Energy Nuclear Reactions (LENR). Italian/American engineer Andrea Rossi is developing the Energy Catalyzer (E-Cat), which produces abundant amounts of heat from common elements (nickel, hydrogen, lithium) without any kind of pollution or carbon emissions (no combustion is involved), or dangerous radiation or radioactive waste. Rossi’s technology has been verified by thirdparty testers and has so far been replicated by Russian and Chinese physicists. Within 12 months I expect we’ll see the commercial rollout.
Frank Acland, Davis City, Iowa.
A Marshall Plan for climate
❚Stephen Harper’s pledge is important because although it may be viewed as only a symbolic gesture to mitigate a growing concern for environmental issues, it is nonetheless at least a gentle wake-up call for the far too complacent society we live in. As activist Naomi Klein states in her excellent book This Changes Everything, we need a Marshall Plan to overcome climate change. Perhaps Harper’s pledge will open the door just a crack for politicians and citizens everywhere to get on with the task.
Michael Luce, London, Ont.
This is climate policy?
❚CO2 emissions increased from 3.5 to 4 gigatons as the world warmed from 1910 to 1942, increased from 4 to 17 gigatons from 1942 to 1975 as the world cooled, increased from 17 to 26 gigatons as the world warmed from 1975 to 2002, and increased again to 37 gigatons since 2002 as the world cools over the past 13 years. It is obvious to me that with global temperatures both increasing and decreasing with increased CO2 emissions, these emissions have nothing to do with climatic change. So why is reducing CO2 emissions referred to as “climate policy” at the G7 summit?
Norm Kalmanovitch, Calgary.
A useless bone
❚Here is a bit of perspective: 2100 is 85 years from today. Eighty-five years ago, it was 1930 and the Great Depression had just started. Promising something that far ahead makes no sense; indeed, it is just a useless bone to the true believers. Believing it is sad and says everything you need to know about the environmental movement’s sanity.
Vilmos Soti, North Vancouver, B.C.
A wasted decade
❚Stephen Harper and his party’s climate change denial will one day be seen as a wasted decade for Canada when it comes to developing renewable energy sources. At the logarithmic rate at which technology has been advancing, there was simply no need to set an end point that Harper’s granddaughter will be lucky if she lives to see. I think Harper’s pledge was his way of saying: renewables over fossil fuels? Over my dead body. Why didn’t he also pledge to end war and pestilence by 2100, while he was at it?
Ron Charach, Toronto.
Would Harper lie?
❚Of course this pledge is realistic. Why should I doubt the word of Stephen Harper?
John Grimley, Toronto.
Cold fusion is not impossible
❚Yes, this pledge is highly realistic. Even more so – it could probably be achieved before, by 2050, or maybe even earlier. Continuous technologic progress is always underestimated. Furthermore, within energy, there’s a Black Swan arriving with LENR, aka cold fusion. Important progress is being made in this moment, and the reason this is not yet known by a broader audience is similar to the situation months before the Wright brothers’ famous flights in Paris in 1908, when heavier-than-air flight was still considered to be impossible. Cold fusion is not impossible. Commercial technology is being tested, and soon the results will hit the world.
Mats Lewan, Stolkholm.
It’s the sun, stupid
❚Although the question elicits a yes or no answer, the correct answer is that it’s irrelevant. Failed politician-turned-movie-maker Al Gore is fond of saying that climate change is like gravity: it exists. That’s true, but both have also been around since the beginning of time and are equally resistant to human tampering. Back when common sense wasn’t in such short supply, we used to joke that everybody complained about the weather but nobody did anything about it. We didn’t need the IPCC, envirofanatics, or charlatans to know that it’s the sun, stupid.
Mike Moore, Welland, Ont.
A revolutionary
discovery
❚Yes, this pledge is realistic. There is enough wind power in North America to supply more energy than the flow of Middle East oil presently produces. Beyond this is a revolutionary discovery that might supply all of our energy. It is cold fusion (the Fleischmann-Pons effect). Announced in 1989, it has been largely forgotten, but hundreds of major laboratories confirmed the discovery. It has produced temperatures and power density equivalent to a fission reactor core. If it can be better controlled, it may become a practical source of energy.
Jed Rothwell, Chamblee, Ga.
A meaningless promise
❚A pledge or promise 85 years hence is not only unrealistic but meaningless. Not long ago, Stephen Harper stated: “We will not go along to get along.” And yet with this pledge, he has done exactly that.
Morton Doran, Fairmont, B.C.
Need better government
❚The pledge is unrealistic for two reasons. First, I understand that the goal for a global climate stabilized at two degrees warmer than historical is an average greenhouse gas emission rate of 1 tonne per capita per year. Many underdeveloped countries have emissions rates below this level. Setting a target of zero GHG emissions will simply raise opposition to a new, practical international agreement. Second, the Harper government, in control since 2006, failed to meet the Kyoto target for 2012. Then it shifted the goalposts for a new target for 2020. Most recently it has pushed that target back to 2030. We don’t need new technology to combat global atmospheric warming. We simply need a federal government to put together a comprehensive, effective and expedient action plan to make the transition to a renewable energybased economy as part of a global strategy.
Derek Wilson, Port Moody, B.C.
Dark ages
❚Whether fossil fuels are eliminated now or by 2100, the results will be the same: the return of the dark ages.
Stephen Flanagan, Ottawa.
When the Leafs win the Cup
❚Sure, Canada will eliminate the use of fossil fuels by 2100. Why not? Just like my promise to take my three-year-old grandson to the next Leafs Stanley Cup victory parade. Of course, he’ll be 88 and I’ll be 156. But don’t tell him that; his math skills at the moment are a little shaky.
Fraser Petrick, Kingston, Ont.
Fossil fools
❚This is pure grandstanding; a pork-barrelling political ploy to convince the gullible amongst our taxpaying citizens that their tax dollars are being well spent by our “saviours of the world” public leaders. Of course, the stated goals will be met, but it won’t be because of anything done by these politicians. By year 2100, technological advances in energy storage devices and non-carbon energy generation will surely displace most, if not all, of our dependence on fossil fuels. Leave it to the current generation of rhetoric-spewing fossil fools to keep pulling the wool over naive public eyes.
Gene Balfour, Thornhill, Ont.